Intoxicating
by TakenHawkeye
Summary: A meeting between Margaret and Hawkeye, during the years of Vietnam. Drinks are shared, confessions are shared. Will review all who review me.


Staggering and slurring, Hawkeye, well on his way to drunk, slaps his hand for another martini. He sips at the cool liquid, wincing as it burns it's way down, and lewdly smiles at the woman across from him. She glares back, though almost unfocused, already on her fourth scotch. Hawkeye laughs in reply.

"You know --" He gulps. "You know Margaret, you'll always be the same ol' -- same ol' Hotlips to me."

She tries to look angry, but fails, giggling instead. "That's Major Hotlips to you, Pierce."

Slowly, thinking, he nibbles on the olive. "More Army in you than -- than -- Vietnam!" He chuckles at his own joke, the brutal truth in his statement lost to the alcohol. "I'm almost glad you had a business -- business -- had to come to Portland." he lamely finishes.

Margaret giggles once more, tipping in her chair. Leaning forward she whispers, loud enough for the entire hotel bar to hear. "Want to know a secret, Pierce?" Hawkeye nods, vigorously. "I didn't have a meet -- meeting. I came to see you." Grinning, she taps him on the nose.

Hawkeye works to grasp his mind around this, but in the end, the five martinis win out. Margaret, continuing to grin as if she were determined to show each and every one of her teeth, stumbles to sit back in her chair. A crash sounds as she knocks it over.

"Oops." They both seem to find this hilariously funny, and loudly make it known. It is with no surprise that the bartender soon appears.

"I'll have to ask you to leave, Sir, Ma'am. The other customers -- we're getting complaints." He smiles, apologetic, though in truth he couldn't care less. Thoroughly sloshed, he knows no more business will be made from these two.

"Find -- fine then, my good sirs -- sir. We'll take our money elsewhere. Right, Margaret?"

"Right!" To accent their point Margaret thrusts a hand into the air, nearly toppling backward as she does. They break into peals of laughter once more, unaware they are being guided from the room by the bartender's hand.

Realizing they were now standing beside the double doors of the hotel lobby, Hawkeye struggles to get out, "Where -- where now Mar -- Mar -- you."

Swaying, Margaret crinkles her face in thought. "It's too bad I don't have a room here."

Hawkeye sighs. "Too bad you don't."

"Too bad -- too bad I don't what?"

"Have a room here."

Margaret looks up, her face beaming. "That's a -- a -- a great idea, Pierce. We'll go to my room." She staggers to the stairway, Hawkeye trailing after her, unaware that slowly "Pierce" has started sounding more and more like "Piersh".

Minutes later they stand before room 208, fumbling with the room key. Dropping it for the fourth time, unable to contain their laughter, they finally fit the key in the lock and tumble into the room.

"Care for a little nightcap -- Pier -- Pier -- Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye nods, reaching for the nearby bottle of vodka, and begins to pour it. He ignores the fact that most of the liquid ends up on the rug, and passes the glass over, sloshing it onto his hand. Reaching for his own, he holds it up in a silent toast, and together they drink.

He sets the glass down, sliding next to Margaret on the bed. "You ever -- you ever think this is how it would be?"

Margaret hiccups and shrugs. "After the war, you mean?"

"Yes."

She hesitates, longer than normal as the alcohol weighs down on her. "Not -- not exactly. I never figured Vietnam. What about you?" She falls back onto the bed, her intoxication more the reason then her own accord.

"Not at all." Hawkeye whispers. He grabs at the vodka bottle, faintly remembering how mixing his drinks was never a good idea, and forgets the glass, opting to take a swig straight from the neck. "I had it planned out then, but it --" He cuts off, slamming the bottle down.

"But what?"

Hawkeye doesn't answer, not at first. Slowly, he rolls over and lowers himself on top of Margaret, his breath smelling heavy of booze and cheap cigars. Mouth inches from her faces he mutters, "You 'memeber -- 'memeber BJ? BJ Hunnicut?"

Margaret nods. Though years have past since the end of the war, not enough time can go by to make her forget.

"Well he --" Hawkeye pauses, giggling. "We were more than just bunkmates, Margaret." Without waiting for a reply, he lowers his mouth onto her's. She can taste the gin on his lips and wonders if doing this is right. It was supposed to just be dinner and drinks, but as Margaret feels her own mouth responding, she realizes she knew it would be more.

They break away. "More than just -- just bunkmates?"

Hawkeye nods, solemn, almost innocently. "Beej and me'd -- we were lucky Potter never -- never found out. Sometimes I think we were worthy of the dis -- dishonorable discharge we would have gotten." He smiles, something akin to pride in his grin for having worked out words like "dishonorable" and "discharge" in his state.

Margaret doesn't mention that Potter did know, that they all knew. She herself had heard the sounds from the Supply Tent when passing by, and it would often be with her that Charles would bunk on the nights he was almost afraid to return to the Swamp. "What's that -- what's that got to do with the now?" She slips in another kiss.

Nonchalantly undoing the buttons of her blouse, Hawkeye replies, "He -- he had Peg again." He pauses looking up into her eyes. He swallows before continuing. "I called him three months after the war. Said he -- said he couldn't be what he was to me before, that he loved Peg too much. Asked me, polite as you please, to kindly not call him again." He leaves out that this exchange took two years to occur, with long, painful phone calls and visits to motels in both Boston and San Francisco to fill the time. 

"Oh Hawkeye," Margaret breaths, working to tug his shirt over his head.

He shrugs, the pain of the memory evident in his eyes. Hawkeye knows, hindsight twenty-twenty, that it truly was all for the best, but that does nothing to lessen the pain. That's where the gin and sex come in.

"It's not --" He slurs, kissing her neck, "As if I --" Kiss. "Loved him."

This is a lie, that they both know, but they leave it be.

All conversation dies as they begin to make love, their concentration elsewhere. But later, as Margaret kisses him goodbye, thinking briefly of the regret and hangover she'll have in the morning, they make plans for the same time, next year.

She politely refrains from mentioning that the name he screamed only twenty minutes before was not her own.


End file.
